


Break

by LuthienLuinwe



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Brain Injury, Canon Temporary Character Death, Domestic Violence, Extremely Dubious Consent, Gen, M/M, Mind Games, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pseudo Parent-Child Relationship, Slade Robin Weekend 2019, Stockholm Syndrome, Unreliable Narrator, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:46:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe
Summary: "I asked if you knew why were here?"Oh he knew all right.A person didn't disappear without a trace only to be found seven months later without having something seriously wrong with them.After Jason Todd's grave is discovered empty, Dick will stop at nothing to find him. But nothing could have prepared him for what came next.





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to my friends Bleu and Kon. This work would have been impossible without them. Thank you for bouncing ideas with me!

"Dick, do you know why we're here?"

Dick blinked and looked over at Dinah, who was sat across from him. Maybe another time, under different circumstances, he would have laughed. He never would have expected a superhero therapist's office to look the exact same as a regular person's. Same 'calming' colors on the wall. Same chairs sat across from each other. Same box of Kleenex that she wouldn't offer him, because it was better if he took them himself. Hell. If he listened closely enough, he could hear a white noise machine somewhere in the background.

Lately, he wished his mind could be like that damned machine. Full of nothing but static. Then he wouldn't have to worry about the messy emotions that were sure to come out.

He thought about lying his way through this. But Dinah was good. Better than good. There was a reason the League put her in charge of mandated counseling.

He looked her in the eye, but only for a moment before glancing out the window on the wall next to him. Three floors up. Maybe he'd break a leg if he jumped. Not that he could. The window wouldn't open. He doubted it would even break. Not that he'd seriously consider it... Would he?

"Dick?" she repeated, and he glanced back over at her.

He hadn't said much since returning a little under a month ago. He didn't eat, didn't sleep. And he was still better off than Jason was. Jason, who was drugged out of his mind in the psych ward of Gotham Mercy until Bruce could figure out a more long-term solution for him.

He blinked and glanced down at his hands, folded in his lap. If he hadn't been wearing long sleeves, they would both be able to see the hand-shaped bruises around his wrists.

"I asked if you knew why were here?"

Oh he knew all right.

A person didn't disappear without a trace only to be found seven months later without having something seriously wrong with them.

Bruce hadn't listened when Dick had insisted he was fine. That he didn't need this. That he just wanted to continue on like nothing had ever happened...

And, as much as Dick hated to admit it, Bruce shouldn't have listened to him.

"Yeah," he muttered and turned his gaze from the window to the fish tank in the corner. Seriously. It was like every mental health professional in Gotham had the same damn interior designer. It was so cliche he wanted to laugh again. "Yeah, I know why we're here."

"Good," Dinah nodded, and Dick turned back to face her. She'd leaned forward, her own hands folded in her lap just like his were. He avoided her gaze, though. He didn't need her to feel sorry for him like everyone else seemed to.

"Now then," she spoke, voice even, professional. "Can you tell me what happened with Slade Wilson?"


	2. Chapter 2

It would have been easier if Batman had been the one to find them. 

That was the only thought running through Dick's head when he saw the red and blue flashing lights reflecting off the bedroom window. Batman would have come in and gotten them out and probably left Slade laid up in bed for months, if not longer. Batman would have taken them home, pretended like everything was fine, and life would go on like normal for awhile until the inevitable breakdown. And as much as he didn't want to admit it, there was _always_ a breakdown.

It wasn't an if.

It was a when.

_What's your name?_

_Dick Grayson.  
_

_What's his name?  
_

_Jason Todd.  
_

_Jason Todd's dead.  
_

_Yeah, well I thought so too.  
_

Batman would have treated them like any other victims in a major case. 

Victims.

Now there was a word Dick _absolutely_ hated.

He didn't want to be a victim. Part of him screamed that he wasn't. He could have left at any time. He wasn't being held captive. He wasn't being threatened, at least not directly. He had never fought back, and he had never said no.

Batman would have escorted them outside and sent them outside and off to deal with the rest of their lives, left them to deal with whatever came next. Or, at least he would have had it not been two of his sons there. Who knows how he would have handled them then? Dick didn't know.

The fact of the matter was that arrests were boring. Crime shows never got it right. People almost never fought back. There was almost never any screaming. Heated emotions were usually saved for booking, when everything suddenly became real. And even then, it was only usually the drunks that made any sort of scene.

_Slade Wilson?_

He had heard the officer, even from where he lay on the bed. He hadn't been bound. He wasn't trapped. He had free reign of the house. He could have left...

_You're under arrest for criminal confinement._

_You have the right to remain silent...  
_

An officer had searched the house with a gun drawn, but had lowered in when he stepped in the room to see Dick, lying down in an old t-shirt and pair of pajama pants. Dick had looked over at him, stood up, and followed him outside of the house, where a nice EMT had draped a blanket over his shoulders and told him to sit down at the back of the ambulance to be looked over by a paramedic.

The movies and television shows were always the same. The alleged victim would run over and hug the person who had finally rescued them. They would cry and thank them and have to be pulled away to go be looked over and sent to a hospital where they'd be treated more thoroughly and receive an intensive psych eval, all the while telling everyone how relieved they were to have finally been rescued from the hell they'd lived through for the past however many days...

And Dick?

Dick hadn't felt a damned thing. Not even when he saw Slade in cuffs, being escorted into the back of a cop car.

 

* * *

 

Re-adjustments were always difficult. He knew that to be true from first-hand experience. Why wouldn't this be difficult? His life had been turned completely upside down, and he had just had time to adjust to what seemed to be his new one when the police had broken down that door.

 

The worst part was the quiet.

Back before he had... gone away, it had seemed like there was always something going on at the manor. A party. A gathering. Jason and his friends hanging out in the living room. Always something going on. Something making the place seem alive. But now? It was cold and dead and lifeless, and Dick wondered if it was ever going to feel like home again. Somehow he doubted it. There was too much water under the bridge. Too many things had happened. Too many things had gone wrong.

"You're back," Bruce greeted from his study, a quaint room just off the side of the foyer. Not for the first time, Dick wished it was further back in the manor, or that Bruce would leave his door shut so he wouldn't see everyone coming and going. But, then again, maybe that was why Bruce had always refused to move it. He always had been paranoid. "How'd it go?"

"Fine," Dick lied. What else could he say? Bruce didn't expect progress. He demanded it. But how the hell was he supposed to make any sort of progress when so much had happened? His mind was a muddled mess, filled with worry over Jason and everything that had happened and trying to enter back into the 'real world,' that he wasn't even sure where to start. _It's why you need help._

At least the media had the decency to keep their distance. At least for the time being. It would only be a matter of time before cameras and microphones were shoved in his face, demanding to know what had happened and with who and with when. And how difficult it must have been to survive being kidnapped for so long. _I could have left..._

"How's Jason?" Dick asked and leaned against the doorway to the study. It was a stupid question, and he knew it. Jason was never going to regain more function than he already had, and they both knew it. And now with the trauma of being separated from Slade? God only knew if he was ever going to be remotely okay again.

_Want to go home. Dickie, please._

_You can't, Jay.  
_

_Why?  
_

"No change," Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, and Dick just nodded in response. 

He needed to visit. He hadn't in days. But the sight of Jason drugged out of his mind, loopy and exhausted and _terrified_ had damn near destroyed him. 

_"Dick?" Dinah had asked after a long moment of letting Dick talk. Dick had glanced over, not really caring what she had to say, but knowing he didn't exactly have a choice in the matter. And wasn't that part of the point of this? To let him have a choice again? To have a say in what happened in his life? Then why the hell did she get to talk even when he didn't want to listen? Even though he definitely didn't want to hear a word she had to say._

_"What?" He had asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice, not even sure what he was desperate for anymore. And he didn't have time for this, time for her. Not when Jason was scared and alone and needed him...  
_

_"I need you to know something I'm pretty sure no one has said to you before."  
_

_He had frowned at that. Was this the part where she said something profound and he was suddenly cured of all the supposed problems he'd developed over the past several months.  
_

_"Sometimes it's okay to put yourself first. And this is one of those times."  
_

_What the hell did she know anyway?  
_

"Do you want to talk about it?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow and looking over his papers and straight at Dick. And Dick hated it, how easily Bruce could see through everyone else. How there was no lying to Bruce Wayne and especially no lying to the Bat. But what was there to talk about? He was gone. He'd taken care of Jason, and he was back.

"Nothing to say," Dick responded. Maybe in another life, in another time, he would have crossed the room and sat at one of the chairs across from Bruce's desk. Maybe he would have opened up and talked about all of the horrible things everyone else seemed so damned certain had happened. But he'd spoken the truth. There was no need to talk when there was nothing to talk about. 

He watched as Bruce sat for a moment, jaw set as if he had wanted to say something but had decided against it. Probably for the best, Dick figured. They'd danced around each other over the past three weeks, neither sure what to say to the other. Neither sure what there was _to_ be said.

_Why are you here, Bruce?_

_To take you home.  
_

_I was already home.  
_

_Dick, he...  
_

_Didn't do anything wrong.  
_

"I should go see Jason." It wasn't a question. Dick was done asking. Why bother when the answer would always be the same? Bruce would say no, just like he always did. Dick would remind him that he was supposed to be practicing becoming independent again. They would fight. Someone would say something they'd regret, and they'd go back to walking on eggshells. 

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"You never do."

 


End file.
